The Secret Life of Books Series 2

Episode
Cider With Rosie
Broadcast Info
2015 (29 mins)
Description
In this film, acclaimed author Joanna Trollope rediscovers the story behind Cider with Rosie and the world of its author, Laurie Lee. Having first read the book shortly after its publication fifty years ago, and cherished it ever since, Joanna journeys to Slad, the tiny Cotswold village where Lee’s memoir of growing up after the First World War is set.
Through a series of encounters with family friends and local historians, Joanna discovers that Lee was not always strictly faithful to the literal truth in the book. Nevertheless, these intoxicating and poetic descriptions of youth capture the essence of a life lived one hundred years ago, an aspect of the book which has made readers treasure it in the generations since.
By returning to the original manuscripts in the British Library and relying on help from academics from the OU and Oxford University, Joanna learns about the composition process of the book, its long gestation period, and how it became the break-out hit of Lee’s literary career.
Along the way, Joanna learns some intriguing details about the real life identity of the Rosie immortalised in the book’s title. While he always maintained that she was a composite of several of his early girlfriends, there are some tantalising clues that hint at her being a particular neighbour of the young Lee. But ultimately Joanna determines that it wasn’t Rosie who was to prove the biggest influence on Lee’s young life; it was his Mother, whose depiction in the book remains one of the most powerful in all literature.
Genre
Arts; Literature; Writing; History
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How to cite this record

The Open University, "The Secret Life of Books Series 2". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/219313 (Accessed 23 Nov 2025)